Google Assistant Gets Smarter, Comes to iPhone

iPhone users can now say 'OK, Google' to get access to an expanded Assistant feature set. Meanwhile, Google Home gets voice calls and more.

Move over, Siri. Google Assistant is coming to the iPhone.

You can now ask the Assistant to turn on your living room lights or look up an order confirmation email from Gmail, among many other tasks, all without interacting with a physical Google product like the Home speaker or Pixel.

Google announced the Assistant's expansion to the iPhone at its I/O developers conference on Wednesday, along with a slew of other improvements. In addition to iPhone support, perhaps the most intriguing new skill is the Google Lens, which makes the Assistant even more powerful by unleashing its artificial intelligence algorithm on the photos you take with your smartphone's camera.

Is your cab stopped at a red light in an unfamiliar city? Open up the Google Assistant app, point your phone's camera at the first restaurant you see out your window, and the Assistant will recognize it and pull up its ratings and reviews. Passing a movie theater? Point your camera at the marquee and the Assistant can find you showtimes and even help you buy tickets via a Ticketmaster integration. The Google Lens isn't quite ready yet; Google says it will be rolling out in the coming months.

Sometimes you'd like to interact with a voice assistant without, well, the voice part (maybe you scored those tickets, and now you're in the middle of the movie). So the company is also adding the ability to type requests to the Assistant on your phone, starting today. You'll also be able to see past requests you've made in the text conversation view.

Other improvements to Assistant focus on the Google Home speaker, unveiled last fall as a competitor to the Amazon Echo. Chief among them is the ability to place voice calls, which will roll out "in the coming months." Unlike a similar feature from Amazon, which requires both parties to have an Echo or the Alexa app, the Google Assistant on Google Home can make free calls to US landlines and mobile numbers.

For those times you need a visual response, Google Home will also be able to cast certain responses, such as displaying a calendar full of appointments, to your Chromecast-enabled TV (that's coming later this year). Google is also adding Bluetooth to Home, a key hardware feature missing at launch. That means you can stream music stored on your phone or tablet. Finally, Google Home now supports the free version of Spotify, as well as Soundcloud and Deezer.

About the Author

Tom is PCMag's San Francisco-based news reporter. He got his start in technology journalism by reviewing the latest hard drives, keyboards, and much more for PCMag's sister site, Computer Shopper. As a freelancer, he's written on topics as diverse as Borneo's rain forests, Middle Eastern airlines, and big data's role in presidential elections. A graduate of Middlebury College, Tom also has a master's journalism degree from New York University. Follow him on Twitter @branttom. See Full Bio